Hbo Police To Sniff Out Bar Pirates

January 28, 1993|by KAREN YURCONIC, The Morning Call

Allentown sports bars and other establishments beware:

The Home Box Office police will be watching you Feb. 6.

On that date, the night of the Riddick Bowe-Michael Dokes boxing match, the HBO police, who are really private investigators hired by the pay television company, will blanket Allentown bars and similar businesses in an attempt to prevent the bout from being illegally shown.

"Some people are under the assumption that you can buy the rights to show it that night," said HBO spokeswoman Jennifer Moffie, "and that's illegal.

"They can get it via satellite or via cable, but either way it's an illegal act," she said of establishments that show HBO programs, which are for home and motel/hotel use only.

A bar can be fined up to $300,000 -- $150,000 each for violating the Communications Act and the Copyright Act -- for showing an HBO event, Moffie said.

"If you're a little bar and make a thousand dollars that night, a fine like this could put you out of business," she warned.

Moffie said HBO decided to include Allentown in its investigation because people in smaller communities often incorrectly assume they're just a small fish in a big pond.

"This time we're targeting some of the smaller cities because they think `Oh well, HBO is going to come to New York and L.A. (Los Angeles); they're not going to come to my small town," Moffie said.

Moffie did not know how many HBO investigators would be in Allentown Feb. 6. She said it is often not difficult to find violators. "I think basically they're trying to target people who are advertising. Any bars, any sports bars. It's not like they're (businesses are) real covert about it."

The number of sports bars and the sports-mindedness of an area also figure into the investigation equation, Moffie said.

"We want everyone in every city to be aware we're taking this seriously," Moffie said. "That's why we're letting you guys know beforehand. We don't want to make money off it, we just want to stop the piracy."

The money HBO expends to prevent its signal from being illegally transmitted is not financially advantageous, Moffie said, but the company wants to send the message it's protecting residential customers.

John Redpath, HBO general counsel, said in a prepared statement, "It is singularly unfair that these places should gain commercial advantages subsidized by the legitimate subscriber."

In 1991, Duke's Pub in Phillipsburg was among 18 bars in four states accused in a federal lawsuit of illegally showing the Evander Holyfield-George Foreman fight. The lawsuit said the bars failed to arrange with HBO to show the boxing match to patrons, as required by pay-per-view contracts.

HBO's local enforcement efforts moved up to a coast-to-coast level with the pay-TV company's first national sweep of bars and restaurants during the Mike Tyson-Henry Tillman match in June 1990.

To date, HBO officials said, the sweeps have covered 1,200 bars, resulting in more than 30 lawsuits. There have been a number of out-of-court settlements in which bars and restaurants paid substantial monetary penalties, HBO said.